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Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 50 Years On

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 311))

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Abstract

In Spring of 2012, the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University hosted a session of the Boston Colloquium celebrating the 50th anniversary of Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (henceforth, Structure).This colloquium brought together many of the world’s leading scholars on Kuhn and we were honored to have the Kuhn family present as well to share their own personal stories and perspectives about Thomas Kuhn and his work. It was not the first time the Center had marked an anniversary of this book: In 1982 Kuhn himself had come to speak in the Boston Colloquium about his Structure 20 years on.What is remarkable about this book, which has sold well over a million copies, is that it continues to shape the history and philosophy of science and popular thinking as much today, 50 years on, as it did 20 years on, though perhaps not in exactly the same way. Exploring just what the legacy of Kuhn’s Structure is 50 years on is the subject of this volume. While the inspiration for this volume came from this colloquium, several additional scholars representing diverse perspectives within the history and philosophy of science have contributed papers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a further discussion of the historical background to Structure, see Shapin, Chap. 2, in this volume.

  2. 2.

    See Margaret Masterman (1970) and Dudley Shapere (1964) for the problem of Kuhn’s multiple uses of the term ‘paradigm’. Kuhn’s response and clarification of ‘paradigm’, which avoids problems of ambiguity, is found in the 1969 Postscript to Structure, along with his (1974).

  3. 3.

    For a further discussion of Kuhn and the notion of scientific change, see Bird, Chap. 3, in this volume.

  4. 4.

    For an examination of the nature of normal science today, see Mody, Chap. 7, in this volume.

  5. 5.

    For a discussion of these universalist and normative elements in Kuhn’s historical project see Bird, Chap. 3, in this volume and specifically in connection with questions about the relationship between history of science and philosophy of science, see Richardson, Chap. 4, in this volume.

  6. 6.

    For an analysis of Kuhn and Carnap concerning the notion of incommensurability, see Tsou, Chap. 5, in this volume. For a further discussion of Kuhn’s different notions of incommensurability, see Marcum, Chap. 9, in this volume.

  7. 7.

    See Massimi, Chap. 10, in this volume for a further discussion of Kuhn and scientific realism, along with Kuhn’s relativism.

  8. 8.

    While Kuhn believes that the list of problems solved by science will grow in number, he notes that after a revolution it need not be the same problems that are solved; for example, while Descartes’ celestial mechanics solved the problem of answering why all the planets orbit the sun in the same direction, in the transition to the Newtonian paradigm a solution to this problem was lost (such examples have come to be known as “Kuhn losses”).

  9. 9.

    For the charges of irrationality and subjectivity, see Shapere (1966) and Scheffler (1967).Likewise, see also Shapere’s and Popper’s essays contained in Lakatos and Musgrave (1970). For an analysis of the relation between Kuhn and the rationality of science, see Roush, Chap. 6, in this volume.

  10. 10.

    It seems Kuhn had been planning to address at least some of these issues in his next book, The Plurality of Worlds: An Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development, of which only an unfinished manuscript exists. For a further discussion of this manuscript, see Hoyningen-Huene, Chap. 13, of this volume.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Bridgewater State University, 45 School Street, 02325, Bridgewater, MA, USA

    Asso. Prof. William J. Devlin PhD & Asso. Prof. Alisa Bokulich PhD

  2. Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Department of Philosophy, Boston University, 745 Commonwealth Avenue, 02128, Boston, MA, USA

    Asso. Prof. Alisa Bokulich PhD

Authors
  1. Asso. Prof. William J. Devlin PhD
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  2. Asso. Prof. Alisa Bokulich PhD
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Correspondence to William J. Devlin PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA

    William J. Devlin

  2. Department of Philosophy, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Alisa Bokulich

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Devlin, W., Bokulich, A. (2015). Introduction. In: Devlin, W., Bokulich, A. (eds) Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions - 50 Years On. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 311. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-13383-6_1

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